Don't Deport My Mom

As I was reading Fox News Latino, I stumbled upon an article that relates to what seems to be my topic this week: children being affected by their status as immigrants. This article shows a totally different side of the story—one that seems obvious but that has clearly been overlooked. Not only are children negatively being affected by their own status as immigrants, legal or not legal, they are also affected by a great sense of fear of deportation for themselves and their parents alike. A new study done by the University of Albany reports that “children suffer the most serious emotional and physical consequences from U.S. deportation policies.” While on the one hand, children experience
anxiety that manifests itself in all kinds of ways-- loss of appetite, increases in crying and upset behavior, sleeplessness, clingy behavior, increase in fear and anxiety and general fear of law enforcement officials-- on the other hand, parents fear losing custody of their children if deported. What actually happens to these children if their parents are deported? And why has it taken this long for people to pay attention? I fully support research but it isn’t enough to report things like this. I’m glad that people are finally paying attention to the children but what are we going to do about it? Something must be done.